Louise Jordan Miln (March 5, 1864 – September 22, 1933) was an American actress, writer and novelist.
Biography
Miln was born in Macomb, Illinois to Dr. T. M. Jordan, a local physician and Annie Wells. At age 5 the family moved to Chicago where her father became wealthy as a banker. She attended Vassar College but was forced to withdraw due to ill-health. At age 18, she began to act in plays in a travelling theatrical company which was run by her future husband, George Crichton Miln. She married him in 1888 and together they travelled to Australia. Her husband struggled to work as an actor and their life for a few years was lived in poverty. He eventually left for work in New Zealand leaving her behind in Sydney to take care of their three young children.
After her father died, Miln came in to some income from his estate which allowed them to travel around Asia where they also performed in plays. As a stage actress, Miln and her husband performed Shakespeare in Australia in 1890. Moving through Asia, they continued to perform in Calcutta, Rangoon, Singapore, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. Arriving in Japan in May 1891, the theatre group directed by her husband gave two weeks of Shakespeare performances at the Gaiety Theatre in Yokohama. These performances were the first full-text Shakespeare productions staged in Japan and were influential in the modern development of Japanese theatre.
Her earlier travel experiences in Asia inspired her to start writing which she did with two travel memoirs, When We Were Strolling Players In The East, (1894) and Quaint Korea, (1895). During her time in Japan, she visited with two students she had known at Vassar in 1879, one was Stematz Yamakawa. Stematz (aka Sutematsu) had become the first Japanese woman to earn a college degree in 1882. Stematz had married the Japanese Minister of War by the time of Miln’s visit and had become the Countess Sutematsu Oyama.
